Theme:
The Unreasonable Folk

To promote local themes and recognize extraordinary people and achievements at the local level, TEDx events are held all over the world! India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, you name it! Forman Christian College is proud to organize its first TEDx event. This year, we have chosen to identify The Unreasonable Folk : Social Changemakers of Pakistan from Lahore’s community and allow them to share their ideas with an engaging and interested audience who sincerely wish to create improvement in their country.

Speakers

Dr. Amjad Saqib a prominent social worker, volunteer and development professional, graduated from King Edward Medical College Lahore. After his resignation from civil service he has, besides rendering philanthropic and social services, been providing consultancy services to Asian Development Bank, International Labour Organization, UNICEF, World Bank, and Canadian International Development Agency. His areas of expertise include poverty alleviation, microfinance, social mobilization and education management.

Saba Gul is a recent alumnus of the prestigious MIT from where she holds BS and MS degrees. She was an MIT Public Service fellow in Sri Lanka, where she worked on low-cost solar lighting for post-Tsunami refugees. She has also conducted workshops on entrepreneurship at universities in Africa. She also sits on the board of the MIT Club of Minnesota, and volunteers her time for the Association for the Development of Pakistan.
Saba is intimately associated with issues dealing with women’s education and empowerment. She has a passion for social innovation, female education and entrepreneurship. The organization BLISS, of which she is co-founder and Executive Director, is the culmination of all these interests. BLISS targets girls living in rural areas that either have not ever attended or are at the risk of dropping out of school. By equipping them with business skills, like making handbags, that are able to bring in an income, BLISS helps to empower them financially, and more importantly educationally by keeping them in school.

Aneeq Cheema, young and energetic. He gets very excited by the word ‘social’, by the possibilities that social change can open up for the welfare of the country, and places a great deal of hope in the ability of the youth. Saddened at the same time by the limited opportunity the present education system provides to the youth to exercise their intellectual faculties, he and Imran Sarwar co-founded the NGO Rabtt. Aneeq combines his vision with astute practicality and a meticulous, step-by-step development of ideas into reality.

Sarah is the founder and director of Justice Project Pakistan. Sarah oversees JPP’s casework programme, as well as the direct representation of prisoners on death row in Pakistan; focusing on strategic impact cases involving foreign nationals, torture, mental disability and freedom of expression issues.Sarah is also involved in litigation to challenge Pakistan’s complicity in the extraordinary rendition of Pakistani subjects to illegal secret prisons created by the US. Sarah qualified as a barrister after completing the Bar Vocational Course in 2007. She obtained her licence to practice in Pakistan in 2008 and gained rights of audience in the High Court in the same year. She studied law at Oxford University and did her professional legal training in Lahore with Azam Nazir Tarrar from 2007-2008, and with Ramday Law Associates under Reza Farooq from 2008.Sarah now leads the team at Justice Project Pakistan in Lahore.

Memoona Sajjad is adroit in English Literature, International Relations and Islam. As a teacher and an avid social worker, Memoona was moved by the situation of education in Pakistan. For her, VEFA—Virtual Education For All—was the solution. VEFA now works to search out and retain the teaching of some of the best teachers in Pakistan and simultaneously provides free virtual education which supplements the gaps in the local education system.

Omair Bangash dropped out from FC College in his time, because it just wasn’t the kind of thing he was interested in. Omair’s vision is to give young minds the courage, and the encouragement, to follow their own aspirations. His initiative, The Dream Factory, hopes to prevent big dreams and deviant aspirations from dying out by arranging for motivational speakers, professionals from different fields and intermittent workshops. They value individual potential and feels that young minds deserve not to be discouraged from fulfilling their potential.
Omair has made good use of his own individual potential. He is the co-founder of tossdown.com and Head of Product Vision and Design at hookedtech.com.

Dr. Arfa Zehra

Dr. Arfa Zehra is a Professor of History at Forman Christian College, and also teaches at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. She is a person of tremendous energy and commitment, who practices and urges her students to use their own intelligence to formulate their own rational opinions.
As Chairman of the National Commission for Women and member of the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, Dr. Arfa is at the heart of the socio-political structure that moulds women empowerment in Pakistan. And with her intellect and experience she rises to the occasion without doubt.

Taimur Rahman is a graduate from Grinnell College, and has a PhD from Sussex University in Class Structure of Pakistan. He teaches political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences at present. His own political beliefs and his need to address the socio-political issues that baffle Pakistan at present is materialised through his vocals, as the lead singer of the band Laal. Laal usually adopts works of poets such as Faiz, or rings socialist in nature.
Visibly a man of many talents as an academic, singer/songwriter, an actor, director and producer, and General Secretary of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, Taimur Rahman uses all of these outlets to reach out to people about the social and political dilemmas that exist in their lives.